Chapter 644: Startling Change
"Where could she be? Should I go see her..."
Finally having made it through the school day, Lun Heping walked alone down the road, muttering questions to himself, yet his body proved far more honest than his words. His legs, as if guided by some unseen force, were already making their way towards Hui's address.
"It took two bags of snacks just to coax her address from her friend—it would be a waste not to go, wouldn't it?" he rationalized to himself.
Hui's family resided in Tiancheng Haoyuan, a high-end villa community within the city, where entry and exit were governed by a strict registration system.
Not wearing his school uniform, Lun Heping had no choice but to hand over both his student ID and national ID to the security guard for registration before he was grudgingly allowed entry.
"Block B, Villa 11... Block B, Villa 12..." He quietly counted the house numbers in front of the garden, quickly locating Hui's home.
However, just as he neared the front gate, a fresh wave of hesitation washed over him.
"Was I just imagining things...?
It feels so rude to come empty-handed...
A flurry of questions surged into his mind, transforming Lun Heping into a bashful young boy, causing him to halt less than ten meters from his destination.
......
"Forget it! If I'm a simp, then I'm a simp! So what if I fell in love at first sight?! If I wasn't truly in love, who the hell would be willing to be a simp?!"
After struggling for nearly ten minutes, armed with that peculiar, inexplicable courage unique to youth, Lun Heping finally pressed Hui's doorbell.
"Ding dong!"
The doorbell chimed with a crisp, clear sound.
Yet, in Lun's world at that moment, the pounding of his own heart seemed to reverberate even louder than the chime.
"Thump."
"Thump."
Every second of waiting stretched into an eternity.
A century passed...
Two centuries passed...
......
A full minute passed, and still no one emerged.
"Ding dong!"
Lun summoned his courage and pressed it once more.
Another dozen eternities crawled by...
Still no response.
"Could they have gone out?" he wondered, a touch of disappointment in his voice.
"But the cars are all here..."
Through the gaps in the wall, he could see several cars parked neatly within Hui's compound, suggesting it wasn't entirely deserted.
Bored senseless by the wait, Lun Heping started circling the villa's outer wall. The wall had numerous openwork sections, allowing him to peer inside.
"One, two, three... twelve. A total of twelve cameras," he muttered, counting the external cameras like a seasoned burglar.
"Something's off. There are still several dishes on the dining table."
Through the cracks in the wall and the half-open windows, Lun made a peculiar discovery.
Hui's dining table was set with food, yet no one had come to open the door for him?
Moreover, it was clearly not a normal time for anyone to be eating...
......
Lun waited for another half an hour.
He had initially assumed the residents might have stepped out temporarily for some errand, and that the odd mealtime was simply an understandable personal habit.
Yet, after waiting for a full thirty minutes, not even a stray dog wandered by.
"Could something have happened?
Should I go inside and check?
I'll just take a peek, I absolutely won't disturb anything!""
The young man's imagination instantly went into overdrive, conjuring up a whole host of dramatic scenarios.
"This spot should be a blind corner for the cameras... and there are two pillars perfect for climbing. This is it."
An impetuous person like him, he acted on every impulse, not sparing a thought for the consequences of climbing into someone else's property should he be caught.
......
"The front door... it's actually ajar?" He had intended to climb through a window, but unexpectedly found the main door of the house unlocked.
Gently pushing the door open, Lun tiptoed through the foyer, only to be confronted by a horrific sight!
On the floor lay a middle-aged couple, sprawled in a pool of blood!
On both their faces, faint traces of terror were still discernible; they had died with eyes wide open, unseeing.
A faint resemblance to Hui could still be discerned in their features.
But the most peculiar detail was that their bodies were completely encased in ice, showing no signs of decay. Even the blood that had flowed from them had transformed into vivid crimson ice.
The chunks of ice, billowing with an icy mist, were unlike ordinary ice; they showed not the slightest hint of melting.
Of course, for Lun Heping, who was already petrified with shock, the minor detail of why the ice hadn't melted was completely beyond his comprehension.
"Where's Hui? Has something happened to Hui as well?!" he thought, frantic.
For a boy caught in the throes of unrequited affection, what could possibly matter more than the object of his infatuation?
Nothing.
He skirted around the bodies and began to search everywhere, desperate for any sign of Hui.
Alas, there was nothing.
He then dashed up to the villa's second floor, where mottled bloodstains marred the stairwell.
"That must be her room."
Following his nose, Lun found Hui's room, guided by the familiar scent of the girl from his memory.
"Please, please..." He dared not complete the thought, his eyes narrowed in tension as he pushed open the girl's bedroom door.
Behind the door, there was no one. No corpse.
He let out a long, shaky breath.
Inhaling the pleasant fragrance that permeated the room, Lun Heping's tense mind relaxed ever so slightly.
He glanced around. The room itself wasn't heavily decorated.
A large wardrobe, a simple desk, and two plush toys nestled quietly on the bedside against the wall.
As a pubescent boy, despite having just witnessed two dead bodies, he still chose to open the wardrobe, now that he had the unexpected fortune of being in the room of the girl he admired.
A delicate, fragrant breeze wafted out as Lun Heping saw precisely what he had wanted to see—
three neatly folded stacks of lingerie.
He reached for the topmost set, his mind warring between acting like a beast and being worse than one.
Ultimately, "worse than a beast" triumphed, and he pulled his hand back.
His thoughts, conveniently, switched back to his "upper body thinking mode."
......
"Where did she go?
Should I call the police?
If I do, how would I explain it to them?
Will I be falsely accused?
......"
Another cascade of troubling questions.
Lun Heping had sneaked into someone else's home like a thief, only to discover two dead bodies. If he were to call the police, he'd undoubtedly land himself in a world of trouble.
Yet, not calling the police felt wrong; these were, after all, Hui's parents. He couldn't simply abandon them for the sake of his own skin.
"What's that?"
As Lun Heping descended the stairs, his sharp eyes noticed something clutched in the hand of Hui's mother's body.
Had he not been standing at just the right angle, he wouldn't have noticed it at all.
......
"Half a stone?"
A sudden, intense surge of curiosity spurred him to grab a heavy cleaver from the kitchen and chisel Hui's mother's left hand, clutching the stone, free from its icy encasement.
To his surprise, despite the ice inexplicably refusing to melt, its structure was remarkably brittle; the cleaver easily broke through it.
The instant he took the half-stone, Lun Heping distinctly felt the muscles in the corpse's palm tremble ever so slightly, startling him so badly that he dropped the cleaver to the floor.
"What in the world is this thing?" He held the stone, examining it closely, but he couldn't make heads or tails of it.
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